A Boat Going Nowhere
by NorvegianWood3
Summary: Missing scene from S02E06. After the "No more broken heart" conversation and before the morning after. :)


**A WEE NOTE:** The portrait of pre-Sandbrook Alec that emerges from this little story is filtered through Tess' eyes, and her personal burden of fears and insecurities. I don't necessarily agree with her point of view, but my hope is that it's coherent with the character that I'm trying to sketch. And I suck at explaining things; hope the actual story will make more sense than my ramblings. :)

Many thanks to **alectheta** for beta-ing (is that even a word?) this.

* * *

Tess stared at the fridge with her hands on her hips. She scanned its content and whistled: a bottle of water, a bag of anaemic looking salad, two turnips, an onion, three eggs, canned tomato sauce.

"Do you happen to own some pasta?"

She didn't get an answer, so she stormed out of the kitchenette ready to kill. "Alec, please? Help me to help you?"

Alec had fallen asleep in his armchair. He muttered something, but didn't wake up.

Tess smiled. "We can argue even in our sleep, can't we?"

She was rewarded with a soft snore.

"Exactly my point."

It turned out the cupboard hid a whole pack of linguine. Tess kicked off her shoes and put the water on the stove. She heated the tomato sauce in a pan and washed the salad. The window over the sink fogged, and the sea outside morphed into a blurry surface that got darker and darker. She switched on the light and waited for the water to boil.

Their kitchen at home had always been a mess. Both she and Alec had very limited cooking skills, and - between that and their hectic life - it wasn't rare to find dishes piling up in the sink and takeaway food in the fridge. Yet sometimes they decided to be bold and try. Once Alec had made a cake for Daisy's birthday and had used salt instead of sugar. Afterwards, once Daisy had started talking to him again, he had claimed, "They bloody looked exactly the same."

Or that time when she had made bread, and Alec had come home from a night shift and they had made love on the counter while the dough was in the oven and Daisy was still asleep in her room.

A scolding Alec startled her out of her reveries. "Tess, that water is evaporating."

It took her a few seconds to come back to the present. He had a point though: the water was boiling. She threw two portions of linguine in the pot and went to set the table. Alec followed her with the bowl of salad.

 _The room had been flooded with light and the smell of warm bread that morning, and she had pressed her face against his shoulder to muffle..._

 _Stop it_.

Turning, she bumped against him. "Bloody hell, Alec! Can't you just sit and stop fidgeting for a second?"

He gaped at her.

Tess pinched the bridge of her nose. "I'm sorry. I'm just a bit... " What was she? Flustered? Sad? Worried? Eager to play house?

 _Tired._

Alec echoed her thoughts. "What?"

She shook her head. "Sit down, please. I'll get the... pasta stuff."

From the kitchen she heard him dragging a chair to the table. She spilled some of the sauce on the floor, and frowned at her shaky hands. The dark window reflected a thin-lipped middle-aged woman.

 _"I miss you Tess."_

 _Bollocks._

He missed what they used to have, what they used to be. He missed the young woman he had married so long ago. The Tess he had made love with on a kitchen counter, the one who had sat inside a closet with Daisy for more than a hour to show her there were no monsters in there. And even then, had he really loved her? She knew that her flaws had already been there, just hidden a bit better inside a pleasant package. She hadn't changed that much: what had happened was that he had found out that she wasn't enough for him.

Alec's emotional and intellectual standards had always been high, and Tess felt she had let him down. She knew he had loved their little family, but she could now see how, step-by-step, she had stopped being his wife and had turned into Daisy's mother and his work buddy.

And into the woman who had thrown away all they had had for a quick shag in a parking lot.

She broke eye contact with her reflection.

When she got back to the table, she was surprised to find a small smile on Alec's face.

"Daisy just texted me to say she googled The Six Million Dollar Man and found out... " He sneered and handed her his phone. "Look."

 _ **\- It seems TSMDM had a thing going on with The Bionic Woman. Tell mum I finished my homework and loaded the dishwasher. :-) -**_

She didn't feel like a bionic woman at all, but smiled.

They consumed their scant dinner in silence. The blue shack smelled of wood and chipped paint. Like a boat going nowhere.

Afterwards, once she had done the few dishes, she found him staring at the Sandbrook Wall.

"That's a pretty serious whiteboard," she commented. The truth was that its presence made her uneasy, but she knew that was a topic she didn't have the right to discuss.

If he heard her he didn't show it.

How many times had they been there? Pretending to be together but on different planets? The happy memories from the past blended with all the loneliness, and her eyes filled with unexpected tears.

She sat on the sofa, waiting for him to come back.

* * *

"Dammit Tess, my neck is hurting just looking at you."

She felt something soft landing on her shoulders and opened her eyes. The room was dark, she was cold, and a pair of chocolate eyes was staring at her.

 _Alec, Broadchurch, surgery_.

"You ok?" Tess had settled in the easy chair and had flipped through some of the case files that were spread out on every available surface in the small living room while Alec had gotten ready for bed. His comment about the sofa from that afternoon had stuck with her and she'd wanted to make it obvious that she wasn't going to sleep next to him in his bed. She'd heard him trying to get comfortable and had worried when the rustling didn't stop for a while, but at some point she must have dozed off.

"Aye. I brought you a blanket."

Tess rubbed her eyes and wrapped it around herself. "Thank you. You cannot sleep? Is the wound bothering you?"

Alec snorted. "You are bothering me."

Her jaw dropped. Did he want to argue now? What had she done this time anyway? She knew he hated to be fussed over, but he should be in a hospital right now for God's sake.

"You cannot possibly sleep on that chair, and I can hear you fidget." He was looking at her. Really looking at her.

Part of her knew that was just another ride on their old rollercoaster, but she couldn't help smiling and sticking her tongue out at him. "You're not dragging me into your bed, detective."

"No, I'm not. We will swap."

 _Oh Alec._

"No way."

"I cannot sleep if you keep fidgeting."

"Your problem."

Alec sighed, muttering something about women in his thick Scottish accent. Their eyes met, and for a moment Tess lost herself there.

But the moment passed, and then she was alone again in a room smelling of wood.

On a boat going nowhere.


End file.
